My collections have disappeared, how do I recover them? Where is the "Get Started" button for Collections?

Anonymous
2023-02-12T17:25:24+00:00

I turned my computer on today, accessed Edge, went to Collections, and discovered that none of my saved items under Collections headings are available, they have disappeared. Previous Help articles say to click on the "Get Started" button -- I do not see the button. Where is the "Get Started" button on the Collections sidebar. Please help, I have important items in Collections which I need to access today. Thank you.

Microsoft Edge | Favorites, history, and downloads | Windows 11

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2023-04-04T19:47:10+00:00

Here's what I did:

-I browsed to: edge://sync-internals/

-Located "collections" at the bottom and saw my number of collections at 128.

-I clicked the three dots and created a new profile in edge browser and it generated as "profile2" (yours may different, like profile3)

-Went to C:\users\*****\AppData\Local\microsoft\edge\userdata\default\ in File Explorer

-Closed the browser

-Copied the "Collections" folder within that default folder

-Pasted the "Collections" folder into "profile2" of "userdata" (C:\users\*****\AppData\Local\microsoft\edge\userdata)

-Opened the Edge browser

-I clicked the three dots again and opened my original profile and clicked the settings wheel and selected "sign out" on the next page that came up.

-I checked "clear favorites, history, passwords..... from this device". Finished the prompt and signed out.

-This is the most important step: I went back to the home page of the browser in my newly created profile "profile2", clicked the three dots again and signed in with my original profile's credentials (email and password) while in "profile2".
-The browser did a full sync (took a minute) and kept the pasted collections from "profile2" which then all magically became my new original profile.

My collections are now synced across all of my devices, I've confirmed.

I've also saved the original "Collections" folder in safe place in case this happens ever again.

Daniel Stewart

Was this answer helpful?

8 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

74 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2023-09-14T19:08:53+00:00

    This whole collection thing has cost me several thousand euro in lost time, they are all gone, and there is no solution, I just use the bookmarking with organised folders

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2023-09-14T17:39:01+00:00

    Olivia, my model-type Collection has a Model Loaded State. What does this mean, and how can I get Edge to read the collections file located in

    %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Favicons

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2023-08-29T04:59:32+00:00

    I think the reason why my data was not showing is because I closed the collections panel while it was upgrading my collections. Although arguably, the message in the attached image is not clear enough.

    Image

    The following instructions are for macOS. Only perform the instructions if you know how to use the terminal and if you actually know what we're doing. I won't be liable for any data loss you cause to yourself.

    What I did to recover my data in macOS:

    1. Close Edge
    2. Backup the Collection data in my profile by executing the following in the terminal:

    cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft\ Edge/Default/
    zip -r ~/Downloads/edge-collections.zip Collections/ 3. Make sure the data was backed up correctly by decompressing the file and querying the collectionsSQLite-journal collections table in SQLiteStudio and verifying my collections were in there. 4. Remove the Collections folder from the profile by executing the following in the terminal

    rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft\ Edge/Default/Collections 5. Open Edge and then open the collections panel (This will clear the collections and start over) 6. Close Edge again 7. Remove the collections folder re-created by Edge (if any) by executing the following in the terminal

    rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft\ Edge/Default/Collections 8. Unzip the backup to its original place by executing the following in the terminal

    cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft\ Edge/Default/
    unzip ~/Downloads/edge-collections.zip 9. Open Edge and then open the collections panel (This will kick off the "Collections update process" again) 10. This time, DO NOT CLOSE THE COLLECTIONS PANEL and wait for the whole collections to be migrated before closing it.

    A message as per below should appear:

    Image

    Once that shows up you can close the collections panel 11. If you want, create another ZIP backup of your already-migrated collections just in case by running steps 1 and 2 above

    Hope this helps someone as most instructions in this post are Windows-oriented

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2023-08-17T20:24:33+00:00

    I used to have 11 collections in my list. Now all of a sudden I can only see 1 and the rest do not appear in the list. However, if I want to save a page or an image and I right click, then the options for all my collections come up.

    Is there a limitation o how many things you can stored in a collection. I recently crossed 5000 in one of my collections and that seems to have triggered off these issues.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments